Whilst gaming yesterday my monitor went off. Could still hear sound etc so it hadnt locked. All of a sudden sparks and smoke and everything went off. Opened the side panel and the nb block has failed along the solder joint at the baseplate. This sprayed water all over my top gtx470. Upon inspection its been leaking slowly for a while as ive found dried deposits from where it has been running under the pcie slots, but finally failed totally yesterday. Without the pump running there was a small drip every 10 seonds. I notice a while ago the paint had cracked along the join between the baseplate and the waterblock housing but thought nothing of it.
I don't doubt this is an isolated incident but it's probably worthwhile that anyone running the waterblock has a glance at it once in a while to look for the paint cracking - this was the first sign of a problem with my block. Have been using the block problem free since first build two years ago.
Despite the soaking and carnage EVERYTHING has actually survived the ordeal, though its taken a few years off my life.
If anyone in the UK or Europe isnt using their waterblock i'd be happy to take it off their hands for a small fee + postage.
Few small pics below, full res album here. Will take a few pics of the block at the fail point in macro mode once the camera is charged and the watercooling is back together. Its on air at the moment and working fine. Have found an old 845 chipset block that fits so I can even watercool the chipset for the time being.
Counting my lucky stars everything works still. I was hopeful the second 470 and the board would survive but had written off the top 470 (MSI) and power supply (which got thoroughly soaked in the bottom of the case).
I'll repeat again - I'm not trying to scare monger, I believe this is an isolated incident. With the benefit of hindsight the cracking paint was an obvious sign of failure and I noticed that some 12 months ago. A simple visual check every few months is enough for complete peace of mind.
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